The B-word
by DistrictThirteenTribute
Summary: There's something Cindy needs to talk to Jimmy about. Something that, if all goes well, will change their lives forever,
1. Chapter 1

**It was a ping-pong match in my head to decide which couple this story should go to. (The other couple is in a different fandom, and no, I'm not telling.) Ultimately, I decided that it would fit better with Jimmy and Cindy. So I'm back! Fair warning though, The experience Cindy is talking about and basically what the story is about is something I have yet to go through, so please bare with me if anything seems off or inaccurate in any way. Read and I hope you enjoy!**

Life has a way of throwing signs at you. Sometimes you come across it by a leisurely flip through a magazine. And sometimes it can hit you in the face repeatedly, like a series of red traffic lights on the way home from work. For me, this particular sign has been given by the latter.

The B-word. I've been calling it that during all of my adult life. Well, technically, I've been calling it that for as long as I've been having sex. Which admittedly, is longer than my legal adult life.

A famous author once wrote, "Fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself." And as tough as nails as I may appear to be, there are a few things I'm scared of, among which include said B-word. Or as it's known to everyone else, baby.

It's not that I don't like babies. I don't go out of my way to avoid them. At the age I'm at, practically everybody I know has a baby, including my best friend. I like holding them and playing with them and seeing how adorable they are when they sleep and those precious moments when they smile. But that's just it. I like being with other people's babies. I can simply hand them off to their parent when they get fussy. I can't so that with my own, return him or her to somebody else.

It's all those other moments. The sleepless nights, the crying, the feeding, the changing. The feeling you will never see the outside world again. And most importantly, the feeling that you're doing everything wrong. _That's_ what I'm not ready for.

At least, that's how I felt. Until now.

The signs started off very subtly. A coworker would be expecting or a tabloid magazine would announce a celebrity pregnancy. Things like that. But it very quickly started coming at me from all directions all the time. Of course, I ignored it as best I could at first. But it seemed like Baby Mania was deadset on invading my mind in the most meddlesome of ways. It seemed like everywhere I went, there was a baby. A picture, a video, or something even relating to a baby. I know I sound like I'm exaggerating but I swear, I'm not.

But to be honest, it didn't bother me in the slightest. I was coming to terms with it. I understood. I got it. It didn't take me long to realize that the universe was trying to show me something. It wasn't telling me that I should have a baby, as many other people may think. Instead it was making me see how much I wanted one. An active epiphany, if you will. I want to bring a child into this world and it wasn't until then that I realized that I'm ready.

We're ready.

This may (or most likely, may not) surprise you, but I ended up marrying Jimmy. Yes, as in Neutron. You could definitely say it took us long enough to get together. We didn't do anything about our feelings for each other until our junior year of high school. Despite all my skepticism about high school relationships lasting past graduation, something about Neutron made me want to try to make it work. And he felt the same. Back then, of course, we didn't understand that that thing was love.

Luckily, we did make it work. Having MIT and Brown only an hour away from each other helped tremendously, I'm sure. We had our bumps in the road, as all couples do. And there would be times when we couldn't talk, let alone see each other, for several weeks at a time. But someway, somehow we survived through it all. On my graduation night, I remember looking back and thinking that out of everything I've accomplished in my twenty two years, my relationship with Jimmy had been the best part of it and I wouldn't take it back for anything in the world.

Which only made accepting his marriage proposal after my graduation party the next day that much easier.

It was a long engagement. You don't realize how stressful and difficult it is to plan a wedding while both the bride and groom-to-be are attending graduate school until you do it. But nearly four years after getting engaged, we finally tied the knot and became husband and wife.

Three years later and here we are. Still in love, still crazy about one another, and still wanting to rip the other's head off from time to time. And perhaps, most notably, we're the only couple out of all our friends that are yet to have a baby.

So here we are. Nearly thirty years old, happily married, but lacking the one thing that would make our family complete.

This isn't all my idea though. Neutron has hinted (not always so subtly, I may add) that he wants a child too. This, along with my new found need to be a mother has given me reason enough to talk to him about it. So after dinner tonight, I brought it up.

"So, ummm, I have to tell you something." I said to Jimmy as I curled up next to him on the couch while he put his arm around me and played with the loose hair from my ponytail.

"Sure. What is it?" He replied calmly.

"I- I don't know how to say it, so I'm just going to come right out with it." Without waiting for his response, I pushed myself up and turned to face him. "I want to have a baby."

I was totally not expecting his reaction.

For several seconds, he sat motionless. Then with a raise of his eyebrow, he went, "A baby?" He didn't even show a hint of a smile like I was expecting he would.

"Yes. A baby. You know, like, a child. Wh-why are you acting like this? I thought you'd be happy."

"I am happy. You know how much I want one. But why do you all of a sudden? Most days, you try to avoid the topic, but now you seem almost eager at the chance. What made you change your mind?"

"I don't know." I started then quickly continued, not wanting him to think I was even more unsure than I appeared to be. "I- I just, I see it differently now. It's not that I never wanted to have one, and you know that. I've just never felt ready. But lately, I've been seeing children and their mothers and I'm just thinking, 'it's our time'. It is. I mean, we're not getting any younger and we've been married for long enough... Please say something."

"How long have you been thinking this?"

"About three weeks now. It's not an overnight thing, if that's what you're thinking. I've thought this through. I'm sure of this. I am."

"You're not just saying this because you feel left out by all your friends or because you feel like this is what you should do?" He replied. Normally, if he spoke like this, I'd get really angry with him. But seeing as what he said is somewhat logical, I'm not. We've never seriously spoken about having a baby, so it's good that he's letting out all his doubts about me out now.

"No." I answered as I shook my head. "Jimmy, I truly think that we are ready for this." I reached for his hand and laced our fingers together. " I KNOW we're ready for this. And we're totally prepared. We're settled, we're financially stable. We have a good home, with plenty of room. We love each other, most importantly. Our lives are great, but- but to have a child, a result of our love and devotion to each other, that would just make it perfect."

The smile was quickly spreading across his lips.

"Come here." He gently pulled me as close as he could, causing me to straddle him. We kissed instantly, my arms going around his neck and his around my waist. It was passionate and full of fire, just as we had been since day one. We stayed like that for what seemed like forever, making out like we used to when we were undergraduates, back when we would go weeks without seeing each other.

Finally, just when I was beginning to think he was planning on getting me pregnant right there on our couch, he pulled away. Still holding me close and with a hushed tone, he said to me, "Do you remember when we were younger and we would go on all those adventures?"

"Seriously?" I replied, confused to why he was bringing it up. "How could I _ever_ forget that?"

"We're about to go on a new one. One with more chaos and frustration and love than we've ever been on before. And one that is never going to end." I smiled, loving the way he put it.

"I'm ready." I reassured with a curt nod.

"As am I." I leaned in to kiss him softly then slowly pulled away. "Then I suppose there's only one thing left to do." Before I could even answer, he scared me by lifting us both from the couch, my legs wrapping around him instinctively, in one swift motion. With a mischievous smirk that I knew all too well, he spoke. "Let's get started." Then he kissed me as he walked us towards our bedroom.

**Question: How many of you thought the summary was misleading and that you were going to end up reading an entirely different story? If so, did you end up liking it anyway? Let me know! Thanks for reading! **


	2. Chapter 2

Hello, everybody!

So sorry about this, but this in fact not a new chapter. Although it does relate to my writing so I guess it's not totally misleading...

I need your help! At the end of every year, I have a bit of a... tradition with myself where I publish a new story on New Year's Eve. Last year (going into this year), I published _Perfection_ and it was so well received that I would like to have another Jimmy Neutron one done for this year. But I'm a bit indecisive as to which one.

So go to my profile and please vote in the poll! Provided is a brief synopsis which may or may not become the official summary. But if neither story seems to your liking, you can always pick 'other' but just know that there's a chance the fandom that story is in will NOT be Jimmy Neutron.

Thank you guys for reading and please vote! I'll close voting on December 15th. Whatever the result may be, I hope you will still tune in to read whatever I come up with. Much love and thank you guys again!


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